UPDATE: The Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office has identified both the suspect and the woman authorities say he shot as of Thursday morning. Click here for more.

Moments of chaos ended in crunching metal and death at midmorning Wednesday when, authorities say, a man blamed for two other shootings in the previous 24 hours fatally shot a woman outside a Lake Worth grocery store, then raced the wrong way down northbound Interstate 95 and got into three head-on crashes with a total of at least six other motorists.

Minutes later, a Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputy shot and killed him on the interstate near Lantana Road, Sheriff Ric Bradshaw said.

The crashes and shooting shut down I-95 in both directions for more than two hours and left northbound lanes closed for more than six hours in a 4-mile stretch between Gateway Boulevard in Boynton Beach and Sixth Avenue South in Lake Worth. It had been several years since Palm Beach County had seen such a disruption to its main north-south artery.

Bradshaw did not identify either the deputy or the trooper in his remarks. He did not say if the driver was armed, but said, “there was enough to let the deputy know he needed to do what he needed to do.”

Palm Beach County’s public school system dispatched buses ahead of schedule Wednesday to many area schools, but administrators said parents should still expect delays as buses pick up students from campuses and bring them home amid increased traffic on major streets.

PBSO at the scene of a shopping center in Lake Worth after a fatal shooting, leading to a crash on I-95 near Lantana Road.

PBSO at the scene of a shopping center in Lake Worth after a fatal shooting, leading to a crash on I-95 ... read more

“About 15 minutes after that, we started getting calls that there was a vehicle, a black Nissan Rogue, on the northbound lane going south,” Bradshaw told reporters along the highway’s off-ramp. The sheriff’s office said late Wednesday that it believes the man entered I-95 at Southern Boulevard.

A Palm Beach Post editor said he was heading to work at about 9:45 a.m. and was northbound just north of 10th Avenue North when a black SUV raced south past him in the breakdown lane, coming so close it shook his car.

The chase ended with the three crashes near Lantana Road, where the motorist’s car became disabled and caught fire. Several deputies and an FHP trooper confronted the driver, whom authorities hadn’t identified as of Wednesday evening. The trooper tried to subdue him with a Taser, but it misfired, Bradshaw said. At that point, he said, a deputy standing alongside shot and killed the man.

Bradshaw did not identify either the deputy or the trooper. He did not say if the driver was armed, but said, “There was enough to let the deputy know he needed to do what he needed to do.”

Bradshaw said the deputy who shot the man “said he was in fear of his life and the life of the trooper and opened fire.” The deputy is on paid administrative leave, which is standard following shootings.

The sheriff’s office said deputies pulled the woman from the burning car, but she was dead.

The agency said the motorist is believed to have been the gunman in two separate shootings, one Tuesday afternoon in West Palm Beach and one early Wednesday in Boynton Beach.

The West Palm Beach shooting was on South Dixie Highway near Southern Boulevard, West Palm Beach police said. The victim, who had non-life threatening injuries, likely knew the gunman, authorities said. Bradshaw deferred details to West Palm Beach police, who had not elaborated on that incident as of Wednesday afternoon.

And a 21-year-old man was shot at about 1 a.m. Wednesday south of Hypoluxo Road, but also had non-life threatening injuries, Boynton Beach police said.

First officer-involved shooting since July

The shooting is believed to be the first in the line of duty by a law-enforcement officer in Palm Beach County since July, when a Palm Springs Police said an officer shot a man who tried to back into officers in a truck that turned out to be stolen. The man was not seriously hurt.

On May 15, two West Palm Beach police officers shot Leonardo Anthony Matos after he allegedly rammed his SUV into two patrol cars. And on May 12, Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies shot and killed Phillip O’Shea, who led police in several jurisdictions on a hunt after an alleged robbery in suburban West Palm Beach.

Following Wednesday’s crash and shooting in Lantana, one motorist was taken to a trauma center, and another was taken to a hospital with non-traumatic injuries, Fire-Rescue Capt. Albert Borroto said. He did not identify either hospital, and authorities did not provide updates on their conditions late Wednesday.

I-95 lanes closed

Authorities initially blocked both directions of I-95, then reopened southbound lanes, but said northbound lanes would stay closed through the afternoon. They later extended the closed stretch south from Lantana Road all the way to Gateway to relieve bottlenecks from motorists getting off the expressway. Adding to the misery: A separate rollover crash at about 1 p.m. blocked I-95 two more exits south at Woolbright Road.

All lanes were open in both directions by about 4:30 p.m.

Jonathan Moxley of West Palm Beach said he was driving to work after dropping his son off at day care Wednesday morning. He driving north on I-95 when he saw a vehicle speeding in the wrong direction in the far left lane.

“He was flying,” Moxley said. “When I saw him, he was going so fast he was fishtailing.”

Moxley said the car kicked up debris as it traveled down the interstate. Moxley said he was one lane over from that vehicle.

“I feel extremely fortunate,” he said. “If was I was in the left-hand lane, I would have had to make a defensive maneuver.”

On the Lantana Road overpass, a woman hugged her sister. Their father, driving to work, had had a car flip onto his Audi. The woman, who did not want her name used, said her father was OK.

Clerk said the couple walked outside and then she heard a gunshot. The male shooter picked the female victim off the pavement, put her in the vehicle and sped off. Clerk said woman had been shot in the head. Couple described as being in their 30s. pic.twitter.com/7aluiKgvfM

Witness: Woman was shot in head

Back at the shooting site in Lake Worth, after the crime tape came down Wednesday afternoon, a clerk at My Neighborhood Grocery said the dead man and the woman were both in their 30s and that they came into the store together twice in a half-hour stretch Wednesday morning.

On the second visit, the clerk said, they used an ATM and bought cigarettes. The clerk, who asked not to be identified, said there were no signs that the man was about to shoot the woman.

She said the two walked outside and then she heard a gunshot. She said she watched the man lift the woman, who’d been shot in the head, off the pavement, then place her in the vehicle and speed off.

#UPDATE This is the gun the suspect used in the homicide shooting of the female earlier this morning, 1600 Block of S. Dixie Highway, Lake Worth. pic.twitter.com/eN62ykFK1r